Jupiter XLIX has a moon base on Kore with stories by David Cleden, Jack Schouten, Jude Jones, and Rik Hunik.

With Jupiter XLIX, we are on Kore and it's as good as ever.

The fiction begins with "Stripped" by David Cleden. -+- Marco thinks he hit a dog when he was speeding along in his '67 Mustang, but he is not sure. He lives in a future in which everyone wears glasses that impose a different reality than what is actually there. His friend, Wolfboy, clues him in on some things and he actually takes the glasses off for periods of less than a minute. He finds out that his city, and apparently everywhere else is out of raw materials and relies on recycling old stuff and illusion. What can he do? A good start to this issue.

"Anthilllion's Eyes" by Jack Schouten -+- This is mostly a description about a "Contructical" (called Anthilion which "resembles a giant mushroom, floating lazily against the dark background of star-speckled space. It's stem is a curved, streamlined flute with a small--relatively speaking--and featureless orb at it's zenith." The structure's living space is a "shallow bowl a hundred thousand kilometres in circumference" protected by a dome. At the top of the dome is what is called the Eye which sees all, but is not actually an eye, but is a huge computer). After much description, we get a brief story about what happens when someone dies, and it's just as imaginative as the rest of this story. Quite amazing!

"Mods" by Jude Jones -+- In a near future, people have mods implanted in their bodies to enhance their abilities and emotions. They leave bumps and scares that the sophisticated set likes to show off. The process is tightly controlled by a company called Central Labs. There are those who dislike the controls put on mods when they design and implant on their own. A woman who as had thirty mods, more than recommended, is the prisoner of Central Lab and her followers want to break her out. Unfortunately, the person they get from the inside, our narrator, is a double agent. A good, solid story of the type I will miss.

"Alien Abduction" by Rik Hunik -+- Zeke awakes to find himself kidnapped to an alien world and forced to compete against other humans in a series of contests. There is a good chance he could be killed in any one of them. It is all part of an alien television show, watched by billions and heavily bet on. If he survives, he is granted a low class citizenship on the planet. If he comes in first three times, he becomes a totally free citizen who gets a small percentage of the take. He meets and befriends other humans, some of whom die. Pretty exciting. Another good story.

Well, that's it for Kore! On to Herse! That's the 50th moon of Jupiter. The International Astronomical Union has named only #53 (Dia) beyond that and in his introduction, editor Ian Redman tells us that he will stop there, at least for a while. I will be sorry to see Jupiter go. I could not really describe what makes its stories unique, but I have only rarely been disappointed. See you on our last trip.

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